Condos and dental office to replace Pronto Caffe and Prontino bar in Vancouver’s Cambie Village

The 80-year-old building the two Vancouver establishments had occupied will be demolished.

A four-storey mixed-use commercial and residential building will be developed at the Cambie Village site.

Based on a development application submitted to city hall, the ground floor will be a dental office.

The upper floors of the new building will have five condos.

Prontino is known for its signature cocktails.

Pronto and Prontino closed on March 3 this year.

“Our new location, Centro, located on Denman Street will open shortly,” according to Pronto’s website.

Last month, Heritage Vancouver wrote the city to express its concern over the loss of a business that “conveys a strong sense of place”.

According to the independent heritage organization’s executive director, Bill Yuen, the city needs to look at ways how to prevent the disappearance of establishments that are “fundamental to the positive relationships that people have with their neighbourhoods”.

“A large number of people will identify this site as the Pronto/Prontino restaurant,” Yuen wrote in the letter. “There is no question that it is a fundamental piece vital to the human network in Cambie Village and the neighbourhood.”

Yuen continued, “The demolition of the building and departure of the business will impose a massive cost to the health of this neighbourhood, commercial street, and the city.”

Artist’s rendering of the new commercial and residential development.

Yuen also recalled that the two storefronts were built in 1938, and had housed beauty salons, and a dressmaker and women’s clothing shop.

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